


2 NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2

by Captain America (HisMightyShield)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Cake, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:43:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisMightyShield/pseuds/Captain%20America
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s John’s birthday & surprisingly enough, that’s a bit of information that Holmes finds important enough not to delete from his brain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2 NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cccahill18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cccahill18/gifts).



> It’s cccahill18’s Birthday :) This is her mini-present. Loosely based on the following sherlockmas prompt : “Sherlock attempting to plan and execute the perfect proposal and failing repeatedly”

“Come on then,” John said, folding the newspaper and slapping it against his knee. He looked across the room at the lump of person, dressing gown and crocheted blanket piled on the sofa like a mound of disregarded laundry. “There’s at least -- what -- one unsolved murder in the paper tonight? I’m sure Dimmock’ll write about it by tomorrow. You could read it now, then? Get a head start?”

“I don’t _need_ a head start. Truthfully, John, I probably don’t even need to _read_ the paper to solve it. The mother-in-law, regarding inheritance. But what does it matter? It’s all the same and it’s all boring,” Sherlock lamented, rolling onto his back and kicking at the multicolour granny-square quilt. He looked longingly up at the ceiling as though it might provide some alternative to his current state of misery. “I need something new, something _bold_.”

Watson looked at him for a moment before flipping the newspaper open and rereading the article with some skepticism, his frown deepening a touch when he realised that ‘mother-in-law’ seemed a likely solution. Occasionally he could follow Sherlock’s reasoning but there were still moments like these that left him positive that Sherlock’s detective abilities bordered on otherworldly. “Bold? Well, there is that new show on Sky1 we could watch.”

“Just leave me to die.”

After living with Sherlock for just under a year, it was easy to admit that he’d grown used to the other man’s ridiculous antics, his experiments and his polarised moods. But tolerating him and enjoying his company when he fell into one of his exaggerated tailspins were two very different things indeed. While he would, when he could, go out of his way to try to cheer Holmes up, he also knew that at times the cause was a lost one. There was no point in running himself ragged in an attempt to make things better for Holmes, either. All that would happen then was that he’d fall victim to the contagiousness of Sherlock’s blackest moods and end up lethargic and miserable himself. No, the best thing was occasionally just letting Holmes wallow on his own. He had no access to anything he could hurt himself with and if he was moping without an audience for long he usually found something to occupy himself with which would improve things. 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Watson said with a shake of his head before setting his paper on an end table and pushing up from his chair. It was late enough that he felt like he could retire to their room without feeling like he was getting old. A frame of mind that was always a bit difficult to combat when he approached _the big day_ that meant moving _further_ away from his thirties and closer to his _fifties_. At least there was some comfort in the fact that the day in question -- which happened to be tomorrow -- would probably slip by mostly unnoticed. He and Harry weren’t close enough (for better or worse) to bother with that sort of business and he sincerely doubted anyone else in his circle of friends was paying close enough attention to make note of it, let alone make a fuss. 

“Where are you going?” Sherlock looked torn somewhere between remaining indignant and giving in to his genuine curiosity at where Watson might be off to. He twisted on the sofa and watched as the other man settled his teapot and empty mug on the only unoccupied corner of the kitchen table and then set off in the direction of their room, tugging at the bottom of his jumper to loosen and untuck the button-down shirt beneath. 

“Bed,” Watson replied, “and you can come if you like.” But, the loud ‘humph’ he got in response and the way Holmes turned around to face the back of the sofa, pulling the blanket up practically over his head, was the only answer John really needed. If Sherlock was going to be that way, than John wasn’t about to stop him, and he disappeared into the room that he and Sherlock had started sharing some four months ago without another word. 

 

***

Normally, Sherlock’s least favourite part of Watson’s sleep schedule was when the _snoring_ began. After the first fifteen minutes or so, John’s breathing became white noise like the rest of the sounds of a busy London street at night. When it first began though, no matter what stage of sleep Sherlock had already managed for himself, it was always disruptive enough to wake him up. Tonight, however, he was waiting for it. When John was asleep, really asleep, he was next to impossible to wake up which was exactly the state Holmes needed him in. 

It was infrequent that Watson approved of his experiments, and while normally he could find time while John was at the clinic or otherwise out running errands, this particular venture was time sensitive and getting it underway depended entirely on John falling asleep first. 

When John’s breathing seemed deep and steady enough, Holmes finally slid off the chesterfield and crept toward the bedroom. He pressed his cheek against the half-open door, taking a risk in glancing in to make _sure_ John was sleeping soundly before tugging it closed. The chemicals he would be toying with tonight would release certain odors when heated and if there was a way to avoid John being roused as a result, he would prefer it. He could do with the lecture on flammable substances and hot surfaces. 

Gingerly, he cleared a workspace for himself on the kitchen table, stacking papers and moving his Buchner flasks and boiling tubes out of harm’s way and replacing them with the experiment’s necessary components: NaHCO3, C8H803, C12H22O11, C6H10O5 and a variety of different biological proteins and enzymes that were needed, according to his trials, for the desired outcome. 

One last glance in the direction of the bedroom, a quick adjustment of his goggles and a double-check to make sure the oven was on its way to the desired temperature and he was ready to begin. 

***

It was the distant sound of John’s cell phone alarm that woke him up. In his haste to exit the perimetre of Sherlock’s mood the night before, he’d left the bloody thing wedged between the cushion and frame of his smoking chair, most-likely and now it was going on at regular obnoxious intervals because he’d forgotten to turn it off. 

He rolled onto his stomach and stretched out an arm toward the other side of the bed. The mattress was cool to the touch and the blanket still properly tucked beneath its pillow. Holmes hadn’t been in to sleep and that wasn’t a good sign. He fought down the little twist of guilt he felt at going to bed the way he had the night before. Sherlock was irritating and overly dramatic when he became too swept up in himself and his own boredom, but John _knew_ that. He knew that when he’d started into this relationship; he couldn’t expect Holmes to change his habits and getting fussy about them now wouldn’t help either of them.

But the idea of facing a still-stormy Holmes made getting out of bed a year older to the sound of a phone beeping its way through some kind of _joyous_ rendition of Scott Joplin’s _The Entertainer_ an even more miserable prospect. And the phone had made it to the last notes of its fourth cycle by the time Watson finally managed to scuttle into his striped robe and make ready for whatever Sherlock’s temperament was after a night of sofa-chafed depression. 

The second he opened the bedroom door, however, John’s concern increased from pangs of guilt to _terribly concerned_. The rest of the apartment stank of old smoke, char and -- fresh coffee? A quick survey of the room revealed numerous piles of swept up shattered glass, pots and pans that he wasn’t even aware they owned covered in what looked like _tar_ and stacked precariously on the now towel-covered sofa where John had last seen Holmes the night before. 

Watson carefully sidestepped a collection of cuvettes and (needleless) syringes to make his way to his chair in time to fetch his phone and shut it down before it started ringing again. Task completed, he looked up to see Holmes seated at the kitchen table. “Sherlock?”

The detective had his arms folded over a large overturned pot in front of him which he was using as a makeshift pillow. The moment he heard his name he straightened up, blinking as though the sight of Watson standing in front of him was one he hadn’t expected. He dropped his hands to either side of the upside-down soup pot and got to his feet. “Good morning, John.”

“Have you been up all night?” It was a question he didn’t really have to ask. The dark circles under his eyes revealed as much if the sheer size of the accumulated mess and state of the flat weren’t a dead giveaway on their own. “What have you--did you make coffee?”

Sherlock pivoted towards the coffee machine which sat dangerously close to a kitchen ledge. “Well, what do you know. I _did_. I tried to fix the timer on that blasted device sometime after three this morning, but I hadn’t expected my soldering to take.”

“You were soldering at three o’clock this morning,” Watson said flatly. 

“Sometime after, honestly John, are you sure you don’t need to have your hearing checked?” 

Before John could retaliate, Holmes had moved across the kitchen and thrown an arm around the other man’s shoulders. He’d brightened up significantly from the night before, which John decided he’d only consider to be _good_ news once he was positive he knew what was going on. Holmes walked him to the kitchen chair that he’d previously occupied and encouraged him to take a seat. “My hearing is fine.”

“Right, yes. Of course. I’ll get your coffee. Don’t touch that pot in front of you.” 

John grimaced, retracting his hands from the table and leaning back to avoid touching anything _near_ what he was told not to touch. He’d long ago learned not to take lightly Sherlock’s suggestions when it came to kitchen surfaces. There was still a bit of a scar on his left wrist thanks to an untimely chemical burn. 

“You didn’t drug it, did you?”

“The coffee? Really, John, that was _one time_ and I had a reason.” Holmes paused. “And I didn’t actually drug it, it was only sugar!”

“But you thought you were drugging it.”

“Irrelevant,” Holmes said with a sigh, passing John’s mug down to him before taking a sip from his own. 

John let a few pulses of silence pass between them as he sipped down his coffee. It was a bit strong, but if there was some sort of mystery hidden beneath the pot in front of him, he had a feeling that the strength of the coffee might very well prove to be appreciated. He looked up at Holmes, their gazes met and neither of them said anything. “So.”

“So,” Holmes echoed, rocking up onto the balls of his feet. 

“What’s under the pot?” John turned a finger and pointed to the thing, careful not to touch it and hoping that Sherlock had no ridiculous notions about an aluminum saucepan being ample protection against radioactivity. 

“Close your eyes,” Sherlock said.

“Pardon?”

“Still with the listening. I’ll show you what’s under the pot, but close your eyes first.” 

“I’m not--” But even as Watson started to protest, he was already shutting his eyes. He knew there wasn’t any point in fighting it. Either they sat there in some kind of kitchenware-themed Mexican standoff until he finally gave in and did what Sherlock asked or he cut the waiting time and followed instructions. 

He assumed he didn’t have to be terribly concerned. He did doubt that Holmes would do anything to endanger them as he sat at the table, although the fact the man had obviously been up all night throwing himself around any number of experiments did leave him feeling a bit nervous. 

His nervousness increased tenfold when he heard the sound and caught the smell of a match being struck and ignited.

“Sherlock?”

“Eyes closed, John.” Sherlock hummed, and John heard him carefully lift the pot from the table and set it down on some spare corner of the floor. Three seconds more and the scent of smoke told Watson the match had been extinguished, but not before it had been used to light something warm just in front of his chin. 

“Sherlock, what did you --”

“All right! All right, open your eyes!”

There, lopsided and unevenly iced, was a small cupcake with the name “John” written gracefully across the top in blue and stuck with a small row of two candles. It sat on a napkin and one one of their mismatched tea saucers and looked, in fact, to be quite edible. 

“You did this?”

“I wanted to make it large enough to write ‘happy birthday’, but I didn’t have a crucible that big, but --” He pursed his lips uncomfortably and placed a hand across the back of Watson’s chair, leaning down to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday, John.” 

And for just a minute, it didn’t matter that their entire kitchen had been turned inside-out for a single cupcake, and it didn’t matter that he’d gotten a year older or that Sherlock looked like he might keel over any moment from sheer exhaustion, because his birthday _had_ been remembered - and for the first time in years, he was honestly looking forward to celebrating it.


End file.
